Today the EPA has updated the list with new results and the number of US cities where radiation has been found in the drinking water has grown to 20 US cities.

Here is a complete list as of April, 21st 2011.

Boise, ID

Chattanooga, TN

Cincinnati, OH

Columbia, PA

Columbus, OH

Denver, CO

Detroit, MI

East Liverpool, OH

Harrisburg, PA

Helena, MT

Los Angeles, CA

Muscle Shoals, AL

Niagara Falls, NY

Oak Ridge, TN

Painesville, OH

Philadelphia, PA

Pittsburg, PA

Richland, WA

Trenton, NJ

Watertown, NJ

It should be noted that the EPA only appears to be testing for radioactive iodine, which is easier to downplay because of the 8 day half-life outside of the human body.

There are no results being posted for Cesium or other radioactive isotopes. It is unknown if they are not testing for Cesium, if none was detected, or if they are simply not posting the results.

Be advised however, the half-life of Iodine in the human body is 100 days meaning it can still give a radioactive dose for years before it decays entirely.

What do iodine-129 and iodine-131 do once they get into the body?

When I-129 or I-131 is ingested, some of it concentrates in the thyroid gland. The rest passes from the body in urine.

Airborne I-129 and I-131 can be inhaled. In the lung, radioactive iodine is absorbed, passes into the blood stream, and collects in the thyroid. Any remaining iodine passes from the body with urine.

In the body, iodine has a biological half-life of about 100 days for the body as a whole. It has different biological half-lives for various organs: thyroid – 100 days, bone – 14 days, and kidney, spleen, and reproductive organs – 7 days.

**It should also be noted that the levels that have been detected in the drinking water while obviously not harmless, are well below EPA and FDA levels. It is now a question of who to believe, nuclear industry experts and the federal government, or individual experts such as Dr. Chris Busby and Joseph Mangano.